Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Raspberry Custard Tart

This is tonight's dessert. While the rest of the meal will be largely experimental, I've made this tart many times before, and it's always a hit. My brother and a friend are coming to dinner, and this is one of his favourite desserts. It's from the Joy of Cooking, and is listed as Open Faced Peach Pie, but I noticed a while ago that the custard works wonderfully with raspberries. To be fair, it really is good with peaches (fresh or canned) and mangoes, but I love the raspberries best. As it's still (a very cold) April here, I used frozen raspberries I keep on hand.

I'm saying 'custard' but the filling that goes with raspberries isn't like an egg and milk custard baked in the oven. It's creamy, and rich, almost like a pudding, but with more of a truffle texture, with a vanilla flavour.

This one takes just a bit more time than the plum tart I posted earlier, but is quick and simple. And you can use almost any fruit on hand, so it's easy for unplanned desserts. You could use any dessert crust for this, but I use my regular pie pastry recipe. Here is the filling recipe.

Raspberry Custard Tart

Pie pastry for one 9 inch tart pan (or pie pan)

1 egg

3/4 C sugar

6 Tbsp melted butter

1/3 C all purpose flour

1 tsp vanilla

pinch of salt

1 C raspberries, or enough fruit to cover the bottom of the pan

1. Preheat oven to 400F.

2. Line the tart pan with the pie pastry. Trim the edges.

3. Arrange the fruit evenly in the lined pan.

4. Whisk together all remaining ingredients.

5. Strategically 'pour' or drop the batter over the berries evenly. It will seem like there's not enough. Just make sure it's even, and it will fill itself in.

6. Cook in the oven for 10 minutes. Than turn the heat down to 350F and cook for 55 minutes more, until the top is brown, bubbly and crusty.